daniiildankovsky

[daniiildankovsky]

bitch go outside!! go to the park and look at some ducks!! stop putting your stupid ass shipping takes in the main tag bro nobody fucking cares! if you want to keep shipping your boring ass ship then just do it no one is going to arrest you! god damn bro! shut up!!!

Kinda seems like you care, though.

[daniiildankovsky]

As a burda shipper I think it's rich to hear ppl saying more or less "I'm just asking you to think about the problematic aspects of the ship" because *I have done so* and I *enjoy* the problems they present. The argument from antis is that if you don't feel repulsion and disgust towards a fictional character for their ideologically ugly side, you are insensitive to irl ideological ugliness. But disgust towards art and fiction is a fickle, subjective thing. I don't trust it like they do. 1/2

2/2 Liking a bigoted character could mean you like bigotry irl, or it could mean the opposite, that you're afraid of and horrified by irl bigotry, and you like having the option to contain it in a vessel that can do no real world harm. These antis would be so scandalized to know I've created and yes shipped OCs that embodied the people who committed genocide against one branch of my family. I'd never shove that content in someone's face but... I understand why I did it. I am ok with it.

I mean with the constant handwringing of “I don’t actually like shipping actually that much actually, but...” anytime a ship gets brought up, there’s a mentality that shipping at all is somehow a lesser way of engaging with media, like there’s no thought or deeper reasoning behind shipping. Which is hilarious in a fandom full of queer people who are creating queer content for the consumption of other queer fans, first off. But more broadly it’s also downplaying/ignoring all the character exploration that can be done with shipping, and it assumes that the fans generating shipping content haven’t thought about the characters involved in any real, meaningful, deep or critical way. Which... engaging with something just because it appeals to you on a superficial level is just as valid as anything else, but IMO the best ship fic is the stuff that does character work using the relationship as a vehicle to do so. I mean, we can HAVE a conversation about how amatonormativity impacts fan-generated content as well as mainstream media content, but the second anyone ever tries to discuss issues that might conceivably benefit ace- and aro-spec people Tumblr backpedals away from it like rancid meat, so I don’t have high hopes there.

As for the personal-distaste-as-moral-outrage element of it, there’s an entire emerging subset of media studies dedicated to discussing how horror acts as a lens through which ugly emotions can be experienced safely, and the concept of catharsis through fiction is literally millennia old, so you��d think this argument would be worn out by now. You’d also think there’d be some recognition of the fact that people deal with the same things in different ways—if one person’s reaction to something that makes them uncomfortable is to ignore its existence, that doesn’t mean that’s the only correct reaction, nor does it mean that someone else NOT ignoring the same thing must be comfortable with it. I’m not about to tell someone they Have To engage with content that makes them uncomfortable, but discomfort doesn’t entitle someone to make sweeping statements about people that don’t react to that content the same way as them. But, again, in this era of fandom, “I just want you to think critically about this thing I don’t like” really means “I want you to stop making it so I don’t have to see it.” Which is not actually the way to get people to make the content you want to see, but oh well.

(Unrelatedly, and this is not at you anon, but if you out there in the great blue void are so bothered by the stuff I post that you’re going to whine about annoyed you are lol, the block button is just a click away! Be an adult and take responsibility for your online experience.)

[daniiildankovsky]

Artemy is doomed to celibacy because everyone is too problematic to court him - the fic.

Artemy is simply Not Allowed To Fuck, which is definitely not in itself problematic because there’s definitely not a history of desexualizing people of color (especially Asian men) as its own form of marginalization, heavens no! It’s just that we have to keep him Pure and Unsullied by intimate contact with Oppressors but also the Kin all refer to each other with family terms, like ugh, Artemy calls Aspity SISTER, so that’s kinda dicey and... y’know what let’s just not deal with any complexity or struggles in relationships at all, only Soft Dad Artemy content allowed!

But also god forbid you express an interest in reading Artemy as asexual or aromantic because you WILL lose followers for even bringing it up

[daniiildankovsky]

Not that this will mean anything to anyone but just for the record: I don’t do anon hate. I don’t send anons at all. If I’ve got something to say to you I’m gonna put my name on it.

[daniiildankovsky]

Also, of course, saying there's an interesting and compelling range of stories to be found in certain characters doing anything sexual or romantic together, is not saying you condone any real life behaviors besides... the real life behavior of shipping fictional characters. We can despise bigotry and still tell a lot of different sorts of stories.

You mean to say that fiction is not a 1:1 mirror of reality and that people cannot be judged solely on the basis of what fictional content they choose to engage with? Anon, I believe you are promulgating some scandalous and worrisome rhetoric here!

On a serious note I personally would argue you can't actually engage via fiction with the things that encourage, enable, and incite bigotry in a way that actually impacts the real world without being willing to tell stories that involve it, which will of course involve some missteps in handling it. You can't just say "this is bad and you should feel bad about making it" when that happens and expect the person who made it to feel anything but shame and guilt, which at best means they're just sitting down and shutting up and not learning anything, and at worst turns WAY too easily to resentment and anger, even if they didn't have those feelings initially. Does Patho handle racism and xenophobia perfectly? No, definitely not. Do the things fans create inspired by Patho handle racism and xenophobia perfectly? Of course they don't. But for the conclusion of "you didn't handle this perfectly" to be "and you should feel bad about having tried and should never try again" is counterproductive to any actual dialogue we could have about these things.

...But if the point of your argument is to shame people into not creating a thing you don't like for personal reasons, then yeah, that's gonna be how your argument ends.

[daniiildankovsky]

Again, nowhere did I say I think you’re excusing Grief’s behavior. Nowhere did I excuse P1 Daniil’s dialogue—I didn’t even talk about P1 Daniil’s dialogue, inner or outer. Saying “P2 Daniil doesn’t say the same things P1 Daniil does” is neither excusing what P1 Daniil DOES say, nor is it erasing anyone’s wrongdoings. Nowhere did I say “no one can criticize Daniil for being racist or saying or doing racist things.” I’d honestly welcome some insightful character analysis of Daniil, because just like every other character in Patho, he’s very complex and multifaceted! I find some of his fans flatten him the same way as people who criticize him do, just in the opposite direction. My concern is that recently, "criticism” of Daniil has been targeted towards the people who like him or who ship him with Artemy, not towards the character or how he’s written in the game, and those complaints ignore that he’s by far not the only character to say or do shitty things to or about the Kin. I don’t care if people don’t like Daniil or Burakhovsky—my enjoyment of a character or ship has very little to do with what other people think of them. I care if people are putting in the main tags that liking him or finding Burakhovsky compelling makes you a bad person, but then turning around and saying their ship with someone else who says racist things is a-okay. The fandom is small, but it’s big enough that maybe you haven’t seen that behavior—I have, and it doesn’t sit well with me, so I posted screencaps of the times Grief is vocally, outwardly, unapologetically racist.

It takes more than someone disagreeing with me over characters in a Russian indie game to piss me off, but I appreciate your concern. I’m not really interested in this turning into a fight, though, especially because I don’t think we’re on the same page about what I’m saying. If nothing I said about policing other fans’ behavior applies to you, then it doesn’t apply to you; if you’re not part of the contingent I’m talking about, then what I said about that contingent isn’t about you. Just because something is said in a response to you does not make it about you. I don’t know you, I don’t know how you feel about any of the things I have a problem with beyond your engagement with this post, and if you’re getting upset and offended over something you think I’m saying about your behavior specifically instead of what I’m... actually saying about behavior I’ve observed in the wider fandom overall, than that’s misreading what I am saying. I’m also not entirely sure where I “twisted your words” into an insult to real people, unless it’s insulting to expect fans of something not to treat other fans badly over which characters and ships they like or dislike, in which case... we have very different ideas about fandom, which text post conversation is not gonna reconcile.

“shipping Artemy with Daniil is bad because Daniil is racist, shipping Artemy with Bad Grief is much better”

you mean the guy who waves away Artemy’s grievances with how Big Vlad exploits the Kin by saying “everyone gets paid though, especially me”?

And when Artemy calls him out on it, he calls the Kin (and Artemy) too stupid to look towards the future?

The guy who calls the Kin mindless, violent animals every

single

time he talks about them?

Waaay less racist, definitely.

[daniiildankovsky]

Thanks for appearing in the world and then taking direct aim with a sniper rifle at the complete bullshit that is "Artemy/Grief is a less 'racist ship' than Artemy/Daniil"... Someone had to do it. And I think Bad Grief is pretty interesting but I definitely don't see the same character in him as some of his fans do.

I sprang fully formed from the Polyhedron debris to stand in the Patho tag with a bullhorn and yell "HYPOCRISY!" at the top of my lungs. It's my entire mission in life.

Cards on the table? I like Grief! He's a fascinating character, and I absolutely love that the one NPC who gets shown that none of it is real is the one who's been covering up that he's living a lie within a lie, desperately trying to seem like something he isn't and could never be, for who knows how long. But let's not fucking pretend he isn't just as shitty to Artemy as basically everyone else in the Town. Let's not pretend he doesn't have the same ingrained prejudices as anyone else Artemy ever gets shipped with. Let’s not pretend he doesn’t say exactly the same shit half the town says about the Kin TO ARTEMY’S FACE, more than once! If Artemy/Daniil shippers feel like they have to slap disclaimers on every piece of content they create that involves the ship, we’re not going to sit here and act like they’re the ONLY ones who have to disclaim “thing bad" every time they create something FOR FUN, FOR FREE.

[daniiildankovsky]

Nowhere did I say Grief’s shitty behavior makes Daniil’s behavior less shitty, nor am I excusing any character of anything. What I AM saying is that I have seen some of the loudest critics of Burakhovsky recently claiming that THEIR Artemy/(insert white character here) ship is better/more fun/less problematic than Burakhovsky, and that that behavior is hypocritical. I’m not going to get too deep into the arguable claim of whether Daniil’s behavior IS across-the-board shitty, because there are multiple Daniils in multiple continuities, and not all of them do or say the same things—P2 Daniil actively pushes back against racist things the townspeople say and do, both in Marble Nest and in P2 proper, but if we’re going to pin all the things P1 Daniil says onto P2 Daniil, then there’s no reasonable argument to excuse P1 Grief the things P2 Grief says either.

If you’re so worried about whether or not dragging other characters down is doing any good, you might want to start with the people maintagging their posts calling Burakhovsky shippers “abnormal” and making other fans feel like they have to apologize or beg for approval to create content involving ships or characters a few vocal critics disapprove of. Burakhovsky shippers aren’t the ones trying to start Oppression Olympics here.

No amount of emphatic bolding and italics will change the fact that this fandom has a major problem with trying to police other fans’ behavior. It just happens to target Daniil and Burakhovsky in this particular moment, but it’s bullshit no matter what element of the fandom it’s targeting. It’s hypocritical, and I see no reason to let it continue unaddressed.

“shipping Artemy with Daniil is bad because Daniil is racist, shipping Artemy with Bad Grief is much better”

you mean the guy who waves away Artemy’s grievances with how Big Vlad exploits the Kin by saying “everyone gets paid though, especially me”?

And when Artemy calls him out on it, he calls the Kin (and Artemy) too stupid to look towards the future?

The guy who calls the Kin mindless, violent animals every

single

time he talks about them?

Waaay less racist, definitely.

[daniiildankovsky]

"shipping Artemy with Daniil is bad because Daniil is racist, shipping Artemy with Bad Grief is much better”

you mean the guy who waves away Artemy’s grievances with how Big Vlad exploits the Kin by saying “everyone gets paid though, especially me”?

And when Artemy calls him out on it, he calls the Kin (and Artemy) too stupid to look towards the future?

The guy who calls the Kin mindless, violent animals every

single

time he talks about them?

Waaay less racist, definitely.

[daniiildankovsky]

The Polyhedron